


Reunion

by Corrie71



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corrie71/pseuds/Corrie71
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the previews for Season 3 of Sherlock, Sherlock and John's reunion from Sherlock's POV. </p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: this is based on the previews. If you haven't seen the first episode yet or are avoiding spoilers, please read at your discretion.
> 
> I wrote this back in October when the original preview first came out as part of a challenge to write a fix that was exactly 1895 words and that ended with the word "Obviously." I could never get it to exactly 1895 words. Since the actual episode is due to air in the UK in just a few days, I figured I better post it now before it gets totally joss-ed.

Sherlock entered the upscale restaurant at exactly half-past eight, the heavy glass and wood doors muting the street sounds of London. The waitstaff scurried past, soundless amoung the clink of glasses and silverware and the piped in Vivaldi. 

He paused for a moment, by the door, to observe. John sat, alone, at a table covered in a pristine white cloth and formal place settings, idly flipping through the wine list. Sherlock knew that he would be puzzled by all the choices. His John knew nothing about wine. He would end up choosing by price, unable to overcome his innate frugality. He kept patting his right pocket but, as Sherlock was unable to see more, he didn’t have enough data to deduce whatever he’d hidden from his date there. It was possible he wanted to pull out his smartphone for help in his choice of vintage but worried that it will be déclassé in such an upscale establishment. 

Now that that the longed for moment of reunion was finally here, Sherlock wanted to remember it, to build a shrine to his longed for reunion with John in his memory palace. Here, finally, at long last, was the moment Sherlock had longed for, yearned for, dreamt of, during their endless separation. Sherlock is nearly home to his John, the beacon, the candle in the window, his north star, his touchstone.

Time had changed John, as it had Sherlock and their beloved city. John’s sandy hair was now shot through with grey highlights. The candlelight flirted with the shades of sienna, amber, and ash that Sherlock knew were hidden there. The creases on his beloved face were a bit deeper, the wrinkles more entrenched in his golden skin. John had never lost that golden glow he’d gotten in Afghanistan, as though the sun of that blasted country had permanently altered his skin. Would John still smell the same—of fog damp jumpers, tea, the scents of home? 

Finally, having looked his fill, Sherlock crossed the restaurant, the plush carpet muffling his steps. Without hesitation, he reached out and brushed his hand over John’s shoulder. 

“The Dom Perignon.”

 _Champagne?_ Sherlock thought. His John would never be so extravagant. John glanced up, expecting to see the sommelier. He blinked, befuddled for second and then straightened in his chair and looked away. 

Under his breath, John said, “Ella said this would happen. That I would imagine Sherlock there, with me, in moments of great stress. I guess asking someone to marry you qualifies.” John sucked in a deep breath and shut his eyes, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and then glanceed back up. “Still there, I see.” 

Sherlock didn’t say a word. _Marry?_

A blonde woman returned to the table, settling into the chair across from John. She smiled at John and then glanced uncertainly up at Sherlock. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“Hang on, you can see him too?” John gasped. He waved in the direction of Sherlock and bumped his hand into his chest. He hesitated a fraction of a second before spreading his fingers over Sherlock’s chest and flattening his palm over his heart. A heartbeat, then his eyes locked on Sherlock’s face and Sherlock drowned in their indigo depths. Reflexively, habitually, Sherlock tried to catalogue the colors in John’s eyes—indigo, navy, cobalt… They stayed frozen, locked into each other for an eternity or an instant. 

“Hello, I’m Mary.” The pixie extended her right hand to Sherlock and he shifted to take it.

“Sherlock?” John whispered, finally surfacing through his shock. He snatched his hand away and stood so quickly that his chair toppled to the floor, any sound muffled by the plush carpet. Sherlock put his hands on John’s shoulders and leaned down, thinking to embrace him. John’s punch knocked him to the floor. Sherlock’s lip split. He tasted the metallic tang of his own blood but the pain didn’t pierce the shock he felt at John’s attack. John whirled on his heel and charged off through the restaurant. After leaping to his feet, Sherlock spared a glance for Mary, who gaped back at him before he followed John to the men’s washroom.

In a restaurant this posh, the restroom was all black and white marble, with shiny chrome accessories. Sherlock knocked over the ornate flower arrangement on the sink as he scrabbled for a towel. He dabbed at his lip, wiping the blood away. He heard John’s labored breathing from the stall. 

“John…” Sherlock finally said, feeling ridiculous facing the blank black wall of cubicles. 

“You’re not dead.” John finally managed to get out.

“Obviously.” Sherlock answered and then considered that he may have miscalculated when John flung open the door and stomped out of the stall, roughly shouldering Sherlock aside to wash up. He stood at the sink, grasping the counter, bent nearly double. 

“You are surprised, shocked even.” Sherlock managed. The reality thus far has been rather different from the warm fantasies of his homecoming that sustained him through the years. Sherlock blundered on. “I owe you a thousand apologies, John.”

John held up his hand without looking up and Sherlock paused obligingly. 

“Where have you been?” John whispered, in that way that Sherlock knows from experience is John trying to prevent himself from shouting. It never failed to make him feel like a cowed dog. 

“Everywhere and nowhere. It doesn’t matter. I am home. I’ve come home to you.”

John gaped at him. “To me? The person you left behind like a broken toy? And now, no doubt, you expect everything to go back as it was.”

Well, yes, that was indeed what Sherlock expected so he stayed silent.

“I’m going to go back out there and enjoy my dinner with my girlfriend. And pretend like none of this ever happened. Go away, Sherlock. It was better when you were dead.”

“You can go out there to your boring girlfriend, give her the ring you’ve got stashed in your pocket, and try to sink back into your ordinary, boring life, Dr. Watson. But I know you. You crave the thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through your veins, making you feel alive, proving you’re alive, and one day, you’ll come crawling back to me. Because it was always you and me against the rest of the world.”

John’s face softened a bit and here, Sherlock miscalculated yet again, as he so often does where John is concerned. He bent to brush his lips over his former lover’s mouth, craving the taste of John as he has for three endless years of separation.

And John leaned back and headbutted him in the face, breaking his nose. Sherlock stumbled back, more from shock than pain, feeling the blood spurting from his nose as John stormed from the restroom.

After fumbling with a towel to stench the flow of blood, Sherlock trailed after John who escorted Mary outside after helping her into her coat. He left her in front of the restaurant to hail a cab at the corner

“We didn’t meet properly before.” Mary handed him a tissue. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Sherlock. I take it you’re not dead, after all?”

“I thought he’d be happy to see me.” Sherlock said, still stunned at the depth of his miscalculation. 

“I’m sure he is, underneath it all. It’s a bit of a shock. I’ll talk to him for you.”

“You’d do that?” Mary shrugged. John, having secured a cab, called for her and she strode a way with a wave. 

Having no where else to go, Sherlock wandered the streets for a bit before finding himself at St. Barts, near dawn. He accessed the roof rather easily and stared out at the view as dawn washes over his beloved city in shades of pearl and grey and oyster. Behind him, he heard the rooftop door shut with a bang and deduced it’s Mycroft—and his lover, Lestrade— even before he caught the scent of bay rum and lime on the wind.

“I did warn you he may not be happy to see you back from the dead.”

“Come to gloat, Mycroft?” Sherlock considered how he could just jump now, he could make the whole thing true. Maybe John was right that he was better off dead. 

“Do you think…” Sherlock considered how low he’s fallen if he’s craving reassurance from Mycroft of all people.

“I did tell you once that caring isn’t an advantage…”

Lestrade snorted, “Yeah, you followed that so well yourself. 

Mycroft huffed, “You didn’t let me finish! I was quite wrong.” 

The novelty of that statement made Sherlock twirl around to gape at his older brother. 

“Oi! Sherlock, have a care!” Lestrade said. “John will come around. It’s just a bit of a shock, is all. A happy shock, to be sure. But still.”

“Come along, brother. Let’s get you home to Baker Street.” 

Sherlock settled back into Baker Street, though he found it depressingly lonely without John. Things went so poorly at the restaurant that he didn’t know how to try again. He’d already rejected several outlandish ideas when Mary burst into the flat, late in the evening on Guy Fawkes night. 

Thanks to her, he ended up saving Johns’ life again. He left without saying goodbye, knowing that John’s honorable nature would lead him to say thank you in person. And Sherlock did not have long to wait, as the very next afternoon, John dropped by to thank him for helping.

“I don’t really want to know how you did it. I want to know why.” John demanded. 

“That’s quite a thank you for saving your life, again.”

“My presence here is the thank you. I’m waiting for your explanation.”

Sherlock gestured him into his chair, the soft, squishy one that had always been John’s seat and sat down across from him. Sherlock explained it all, answering John’s questions, and playing the recording of him and Moriaty on the roof. After he was done, he sat waiting for John to say something. Finally, John nodded once and stood.

“It can’t be…as it was before…but I spent so much time missing you that I don’t want to go through the rest of my life hating you. Friends?” 

He extended his hand to Sherlock and as, Sherlock clasped it, he thought, _oh, John, we’ll be so much more again soon._ He must have learned something while he was away because all he said aloud was “Obviously.”


End file.
